Canongate Kirk

History

Background

After the Reformation the congregation of the Canongate continued to use Holyrood Abbey for worship. However, in September 1672 the Privy Council forbade its continuing use, such that the King might utilise the structure as a Chapel Royal. The congregation were instructed to use Lady Yester's Church while a new church was constructed.

Foundation

On 28 June 1687, James VII dispatched a letter from Windsor Castle to the Privy Council of Scotland with an order that Holyrood Abbey be repurposed as a Roman Catholic chapel for the newly founded Order of the Thistle. The repurposing of Holyrood Abbey necessitated the removal of the Church of Scotland congregation, who had used the nave of the abbey as a parish church since the Reformation. The Privy Council ordered the Town Council to hand over the keys of Holyrood Abbey and to accommodate the congregation in Lady Yester's until a new church could be built in the Canongate.

The parishioners successfully petitioned the King to divert a mortification of Thomas Moodie of Sachtenhall towards defraying the costs of construction. Moodie's arms now grace the facade of the church. Moodie, treasurer of Edinburgh and a Covenanter, had made an initial bequest of 20,000 merks in 1649 to construct a new church in the Grassmarket. The town council obtained permission to divert the money. Suggestions for its use included a peal of bells for St Giles', a tolbooth above the West Port, and a stipend for the minister of Lady Yester's. None of these proposals came to fruition and the mortification accumulated until John Paterson, bishop of Edinburgh procured a letter from the King ordering the mortification to be diverted towards constructing an episcopal palace and chapel. Yet, on 15 May 1688, the Earl of Perth, Lord Chancellor of Scotland presented the Privy Council with a letter from the King, informing them that money was to be diverted towards a church in the Canongate. A site was chosen at the north side of the Canongate and James Smith was engaged as architect. The congregation returned from Lady Yester's and occupied the new church from its completion in 1691. The cost of construction was estimated at 34,000 merks.

18th century

In 1741, George Whitfield preached in the church at the invitation of James Walker, the minister of the first charge. In 1748, Whitfield preached twice in the Canongate Kirk, accompanied by Ralph Erskine. In 1745, during the ministry of Hugh Blair, the army of Charles Edward Stuart occupied Edinburgh and the Canongate. The session meetings were disrupted and the Jacobite army used the church to hold prisoners from the Battle of Prestonpans.

By the late 18th century, the church had become overcrowded and, in 1792, a chapel of ease was constructed in Leith Wynd. A further chapel of ease was constructed at the foot of New Street in 1792. The trade incorporations of the Canongate supported the construction and were rewarded with the right to nominate its minister.

19th century

Decline

During the visit to Scotland of George IV, the commissioners to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland met in the church before processing to meet the King at Holyroodhouse. Yet, during the 19th century, the church's connection with royalty appeared to be in decline. From the Reformation, the Crown served as one of the church's patrons; but this connection ceased shortly after the Canongate lost its status as a separate burgh in 1856. The Royal Almoner distributed alms to poor Highlanders in the church during the summer months; yet this tradition ceased during the early years of Queen Victoria's reign. The burgh council worshipped in the church each Midsummer; but this too had ceased by the early 20th century.

The church's loss of royal and civic status paralleled a decline in the status of its parish. By the early 19th century, the construction of the Regent and London Roads had diverted the main thoroughfare into Edinburgh away from the burgh and many inhabitants had moved to the New Town. and Walter Buchanan, minister from 1789 to 1832, described his parish thus:

"The stoutest heart may well be appalled in looking upon the dismal abounding of iniquity, the unveiled and unmitigated vileness, the black and disgusting crimes, which by day and by night deform the sinning myriads of a populous and polluted city,"

By the mid-19th century, migration of Roman Catholics from Ireland had further changed the character of the Canongate. The Canongate's minister between 1845 and 1867, Andrew R. Bonar, calculated that, in the parish, there were 411 families, of whom only 45 were attached to any Reformed communion, 70 were Roman Catholics, and 296 were unconnected with any church.

Revival

At the Disruption of 1843 the minister and almost all of the congregation of the Canongate Kirk remained within the established church. The minister and most of the congregation of the Leith Wynd Chapel, which had been erected a parish quoad sacra in 1834, joined the Free Church and the chapel closed. The New Street chapel was erected a parish quoad sacra in 1867 but no minister was appointed and the church was abolished in 1884.

Andrew R. Bonar was presented to the first charge in 1849. Alongside John Marshall Lang and Robert Lee, he was a leader of the liturgical revival in 19th-century Scottish Presbyterianism. Bonar introduced hymn-singing and a choir to the Canongate Kirk; a pipe organ, one of the first in the Church of Scotland, was introduced in 1874. In 1863, fire damaged the church and probably destroyed the Canongate records, which had been organised and bound during the ministry of John Lee.

When James McNair arrived as minister in minister in 1869, the church claimed 500 members and 200 communicants in a parish of 10 thousand. McNair oversaw a revival in the church's fortunes: four years after his arrival, membership had doubled and the number of communications had more than trebled. At the session's request, the American evangelists, Ira D. Sankey and Dwight L. Moody, held a series of meetings in the church during their 1874 visit to Scotland. Despite the protests of the Canongate's session, the area of the parish was reduced in 1882, when the Old Kirk congregation, who had vacated St Giles' in 1869, erected a new church at the foot of St John Street. The Old Kirk congregation was transported to Pilton in 1940 and the historic parish of the Canongate was restored.

20th and 21st centuries

McNair died in 1888 and was succeeded the following year by Thomas White, who ministered in the Canongate until his demission in 1936. White's ministry encompassed the First World War, during which, every available man on the Canongate signed up and 90 members of the congregation lost their lives.

White died shortly after his demission and was succeeded by Ronald Selby Wright in 1937. The same year, George VI gave the church a Christmas tree from Balmoral: the monarch has given a Christmas tree to the Canongate Kirk every year since. At the church's 250th anniversary in 1938, Wright announced plans to renovate the church. These plans were interrupted by the Second World War. During the War, Wright served as a military chaplain. Locum ministers and their assistants were provided from the Iona Community by George MacLeod, who set up a mainland headquarters for the community in the Canongate manse. Forty members of the congregation died during the war.

The interior renovation began in 1947 with the visit of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret on 17 July. Although the church had always had a royal pew, this was the first ever visit by royalty to the church. This royal connection was cemented on 25 June 1952, when the Queen visited the church during her first visit to Scotland as monarch. This was the first ever visit to the church by a reigning monarch and the Queen and other senior royals have since paid regular visits to the church for worship. On 30 July 2011, the church hosted the wedding of the Queen's granddaughter, Zara Phillips to Mike Tindall.

At the turn of the 20th century, Grey Graham had described the Canongate as "the centre of dirt and poverty and squalor". Yet, from the 1950s, the area was sympathetically redeveloped, culminating in the opening of the Scottish Parliament Building in 2004; the presence of the University of Edinburgh in the area also increased. The church responded with the opening of Russell House in 1964 as student residences and the opening of Harry Younger Hall as a hall and gymnasium in 1967.